Fact: After a gestation period of three months, female cheetahs usually give birth to three cubs. Females can have a little as one cub and as many as six.
Source: National Geographic Book of Mammals, Volume One, prepared by the Special Publications Division, page 145.
Fact: When a baby cheetah is born, it won't be able to see until about 4 to 10 days old. Since cubs are hunted by predators, a mother cheetah will move her small family every few days to avoid detection.
Source: Green Expander, The Helpless Cheetah Cubs.
Fact: Cheetah cubs have a blackish coat while they're under three months of age. They also have blue-gray hair on the neck and back, and resemble honey badgers from a distance. This is good for the survival of the cubs, for honey badgers are fierce animals you want to stay away from!
Source: All the World's Animals: Carnivores, by George W. Frame, page 32, and The Ultimate Guide to African Wildlife.
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Fact: Young cheetahs sport a mane of long fur on their neck. As they mature to adulthood, they will lose their mane.
Source: National Geographic Book of Mammals, Volume One, prepared by the Special Publications Division, page 141.
Fact: Cheetah females keep their distance from each other. If they happen upon a sister, however, the girls might visit with each other for a few hours before parting.
Source: All the World's Animals: Carnivores, by George W. Frame, page 33.
Fact: Cheetah males, and brothers from the same litter, may band together to form coalitions. These coalitions hunt together, and because they aren't by themselves, are able to bring down larger prey such as Wildebeest.
Source: The Ultimate Guide to African Wildlife.
Image Source: Jack Versloot / License under Creative Commons 2.0.
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Fact: According to biologist Sarah Durant of the Serengeti Cheetah Research Project, female cheetahs don't average very well when it comes to successfully raising cubs. Fewer than two cubs survive to independence in the mother's average seven year lifetime.
Source: National Geographic, December 1999, Cheetahs—Ghosts of the Grasslands, by Richard Conniff, page 11.
Fact: On East Africa's Serengeti plains, only 5 percent of cheetah cubs will survive to be adults. Most are killed by hyenas and lions, but a study in 1989 suggests that the greatest threat to cheetah population may not be cub mortality, but the death of adults. When an adult cheetah dies, it can no longer breed and replenish the population, making it even more important to preserve adults from being killed and to halt the loss of their habitat.
Source: Study shows death of Cheetah cubs has little effect on population, University of California, by Tim Stephens.
Fact: There may be as few as 12,000 cheetahs still left in the wild.
Source: National Geographic, December 1999, Cheetahs—Ghosts of the Grasslands, by Richard Conniff, page 11.